


If My Heart Stops Beating, We'll Bleed the Same Way

by extraordinary_things



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Cancer, Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 02:08:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1922685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extraordinary_things/pseuds/extraordinary_things
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fate brought Harry and Louis together but now fate's breaking them apart, too, and it's just not fair.</p>
<p>word count: 1.4k</p>
            </blockquote>





	If My Heart Stops Beating, We'll Bleed the Same Way

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written anything like this before, so constructive criticism would be much appreciated :) Also, I wrote this well over a year ago so the timeline's a little screwy.

        Time is relative.  
        There’s 8 months on The X Factor, but it’s a whirlwind and the days blur together as they try to figure out their identity together, as a band, and it happens so quick. They blend together, grow attached, it’s hard to remember who they were before each other.  
        The first tour is 8 months, too, and it’s the most fun they’ve ever had, traveling and singing their hearts out, and they’re in America, they’ve done the impossible, they’ve broken America and this job doesn’t even feel like work.  
        The second tour is longer, 9 months, and they’d started selling tickets over a year in advance, just in case. It’s all around the world, it’s incredible and loud and energetic and it passes too quickly.  
        The break in between flies by, they’re still doing work and traveling and spending their free time together, even though they’re never apart to begin with.  
        And now Louis has 4 months left, and that’ll go by too fast, and Harry doesn’t know how to live without him.

 

        Sometimes Harry watches Louis while he sleeps. He counts his fingers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. He traces the outline of Louis’s lips, brushes a thumb over Louis’s eyelid just to see his lashes flutter. Harry tucks back his hair, gel free and loose, rolling a strand between his fingers just to get the feel of it. He’s amazed when he cups Louis’s cheek and finds that his hand covers half of Lou’s face. He’s tiny, delicate, sleeping peacefully and Harry tries hard not to cry because this is the way that Louis will look when he leaves.  
        He’s memorizing Louis’s body, mapping it out with his hands and his mind, because Harry is terrified that he’ll forget Louis, and he never ever wants to forget.  
        There’s a moment when Louis’s breath catches in his throat, and the complete, utter silence is enough to make Harry’s heart speed up erratically. But then Louis inhales again and Harry relaxes, but not fully, because he hasn’t lost Louis yet but he will soon.

        Then there’s 3 months and Harry tries not to talk about. He tries to be happy, because he wants to remember these months as happy. They do their last farewell concert, because it won’t be the same once Louis is gone. They won’t be One Direction without Louis, they won’t even try to be.  
        There’s one day when all 5 of them are together and they go out, and it’s the first time in years that they aren’t mobbed by fans. It’s refreshing but it’s distant and it’s sad and it’s not their life. Either way, they have fun because it feels like old times. It feels like X Factor and pre-fame and early love and friendship. Louis cracks jokes and goes wild and everyone pretends to laugh, because they see him differently now. He could act like his old self but he isn’t anymore, and they know it. They see the differences even when they don’t want to-the pale of his skin and the tired bruises under his eyes; the scar snaking down his chest from the last surgery and the forgotten hospital bracelet around his wrist.  
        When Louis goes to the bathroom, Harry follows in his footsteps just in case something happens. And Zayn, reserved, keep-my-emotions-bottled-up-where-no-one-can-see-them Zayn, breaks down in tears because this is Louis. They all love him and they’re all scared and they’ve been scared before but there’s no changing this.  
Harry has the hardest time dealing, which is expected.  
        Liam tries to comfort him, because Liam’s good at that. Liam is his consoler, Niall is his distraction, Zayn is his confidante, but Louis is his heart and his brain and his lungs and everything he needs to breathe.

        There’s 2 months, now, and Louis goes skydiving. He’s always wanted to, and Harry protests at first because he’s sick, but Louis talks him into it. So Louis jumps and Harry watches him float to the ground, weightless. Louis tried to make them jump together but Harry’s never liked heights, so he watches safely from the ground and is right there when Lou lands. On the drive home, Louis gushes about how incredible it was, and has to stop halfway through to cough up a storm.  
Harry pulls over, offers water and pats his back, and even when Louis’s stopped coughing, he stays on the side of the road for a long time. He’s crying, maybe he doesn’t even know it, but he’s crying.  
        “Harry?” Louis asks tentatively, the way he always sounds these days. He’s not his loud, boisterous self, he’s calm and shy and it scares the shit out of Harry.  
        “I love you,” he sobs, and Louis is taken aback. “I love you so much.”  
        “I love you, too,” Louis says, and he means it.  
        “You don’t,” Harry says, and he feels his heart breaking. “You’re leaving me.”  
        Louis doesn’t answer, and they sit for a while on the side of the road until Harry straightens up and begins to drive again.  
        They don’t talk anymore after that.

        When it’s down to a month, Louis is admitted to the hospital and Harry comes with him.  
        Lying in a hospital bed, Louis doesn’t look like Louis anymore. Everyone’s there, because this could be it. Only family and close friends are allowed in. Niall and Liam and Zayn and Stan are there; his best friends. Louis’s grandparents, parents, elder sisters. Anne is there, too, for Harry and Louis both. Phoebe and Daisy wait outside with Tom, Lou, and Lux, because they’re too young to have to see this. Also outside are Paul, Preston, Simon flown in from America. There’s dozens of fans and friends, and everyone is crying.

        Harry’s by Louis’s side, squeezing the hand not hosting an IV. The room is quiet, save for the steady sound of a monitor and Harry’s hushed voice.  
        “Elephants are the only animal that can die of heartbreak,” Harry says, one of his random facts, and Louis knows what he’s thinking. _I could be an elephant, I wish I was an elephant because I can’t do this without you._  
        Louis doesn’t answer, but he squeezes Harry’s hand tighter.  
        Harry bows his head and rests it against Louis’s shoulder, feeling his slow, uneven breaths. “Please don’t go,” he whispers.  
        They’re both crying and Louis chokes out an “I love you” and there’s 12 people in the room but it feels like they’re the only ones.  
        Louis’s breathing slows down, and the monitor begins to beep, and Harry begins to sob. “Please,” he whispers, crying into Louis’s skin. “Take me with you.”  
        In the end, Anne has to drag him away, into the corner where she and the 3 boys envelope him with hugs, and promises that they love him and they’ll take care of him, but nothing they say can fill that gap.  
        Because he’s lost his best friend, his soulmate, the love of his life, and fate should’ve fought harder for him. Fate got them into this in the first place: there was The Script concert, and the bathrooms, and then they got put into the same band and   Harry was the happiest person on earth because he’d finally found the person he’d spend forever with.  
        But then management had a say and Eleanor came in, and they’d staged the breakup months and months before, but Louis had died without the world knowing that he was Harry’s.  
        They deserved that, they deserved to be together after all this shit and fate gave up on them and it just wasn’t fair.

        Harry’s flat, shared with Louis, is suffocating him. He falls asleep as soon as they get back, Niall and Zayn and Liam surrounding him. Harry cries the whole night and the next day, he cries hard for as long as he can remember. They try to coax him out of bed, but Harry doesn’t have the will anymore.  
        He goes to the funeral and then he goes back to bed, and nothing anyone says will make any difference. Harry wants to die, too, so they can be together again but the other boys are terrified because he can’t leave them, too. They watch him all the time but they don’t have to worry, because Harry’s not that brave.  
        Harry can’t kill himself and he can’t bring Louis back, so instead he sleeps. There’s one day, a week after the funeral where Jay comes over, and she gives him all of Louis’s most prized possessions from home, “He would’ve wanted you to have them.”  
So Harry takes them and looks through them and cries some more when he finds a small journal, in which Louis wrote everything. Every emotion, every moment together, the way he wanted to be with Harry for eternity.  
        Harry doesn’t get out of bed after that.


End file.
